THE ONE SUNRISE 



THE one sunrise of the year is that of the true Easter 

 morning that is, the day, which cannot always be a 

 Sunday, when the spring moon is at the full. But 

 nineteen years out of twenty that sunrise does not, as 

 it were, take place, our spring climate being safely 

 expected to produce such clouds as to flout the moon 

 and make a dull smudge of the red eye of dawn. So 

 this year's Easter gave the one sunrise of many years ; 

 such a one as we cannot expect to see for at least 

 another decade. Many a midsummer levee has been 

 more chilly and more disappointing in fact, none 

 that we remember has been so cheerful or splendid as 

 this that ushered in one of the earliest days of spring. 

 At three the full moon is riding unchallenged in 

 the sky. This astonishing April produces not a single 

 cloud to blur her reign, no cold shower to make us 

 regret an early rising, scarcely any dew or mist in the 

 deepest hollows. The moon is over our left shoulder, 

 and we walk towards the dawn. The shadow flung 

 on the white road seems as bright as that of day, but 

 the grass at the roadside, the walls, the rolling banks 

 and hills, even the trees against the sky, yield no 

 details in the light that comes only at second-hand 

 from the sun. It is just a landscape most faintly 



